This application is a division of U.S. Ser. No. 13/134,561 filed Jun. 10, 2011.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is an apparatus and process for the construction of storage tanks, particular for fluids, such as petroleum refinery products by assembling the tanks from steel plates. The present system is easily useable on site and serves as a replacement for conventional scaffolding.
2. Related Information
There are no other systems like the present system but there are man buggies that ride on the top ridge of current plate layers but they only hold one man per side, are limited to the scope of work can be performed, and cannot extend beyond the last plate fitted, therefore they are useless in erecting a new sheet or performing any of the prep work needed to place the new plate in place.
A problem solved by the present system is the safety of the workers. The workers perform their duties at high altitudes while supported by scaffolding. Erecting scaffolding and flooring it is unsafe, time-consuming, and expensive. Having to remove the scaffolding when the shell ring is finished and then to repeat the process on the new ring all these steps, creates more safety hazards and cost more time and money. In most cases the wood needed to deck the scaffolding require large numbers of big trees to be cut down to meet the needs of thousands of boards needed for every job.
This innovation allows the storage tank constructors to erect a tank comprising of hundreds of sheets of plate, in tank diameters of 50 feet to over 400 feet and layers of 2 to 20, without the need of first having to erect scaffolding prior to every sheet plate and ring.